This invention relates to the production of conductive organic polymers. More particularly, it relates to processable conductive organic polymers and to a method for their production.
Considerable effort has been expended by researchers toward the production of polymers which exhibit electrical conductivity. For example, in ORGANIC COATINGS AND PLASTICS CHEMISTRY, Vol. 43, pp. 774-6, Preprints of Papers Presented by the Division of Organic Coatings and Plastics Chemistry at the American Chemical Society 180th National Meeting, San Francisco, Calif., Aug. 24-29, 1980, there is reported by A. F. Diaz et al., in the paper "Electrosynthesis and Study of Conducting Polymeric Films", the electropolymerization of pyrrole, using a variety of electrolyte salts as counteranions. In Offenlegungsschrift DE No. 3325892 Al (published Jan. 31, 1985), there is disclosed a method for the production of fine-grain pyrrole polymers by the treatment of pyrrole with an oxygen-containing oxidation agent in solution in the presence of a conducting salt. A summary of various approaches to the creation of electrically conducting polymers is reported, for example, by J. Frommer, in "Polymer Research Frontier: How Insulators Become Conductors", Industrial Chemical News, Vol. 4, No. 10, October 1983.
Polymeric materials which have been proposed as conductive polymers, for the most part, are characterized by one or more undesirable properties, including instability under ambient conditions, poor physical integrity (notably brittleness) and poor processability (insolubility or intractability) severely limiting the production or fabrication of conductive polymeric articles by conventional production or processing techniques.
While various applications for conductive polymers have been proposed, for example, in the manufacture of solar cells and batteries and for EMI shielding, the physical properties and/or processability of a conductive polymeric material will dictate in part the suitability of such materials to particular applications. In my copending application "Processable Conductive Polymers", U.S. Ser. No. 595,667, filed Apr. 2, 1984, there is disclosed and claimed a processable electrically conductive organic material and a method for the production of such polymer. The conductive organic polymer, exhibiting improved flexibility and processability, including coatability from solvents, is prepared by the electropolymerization of an electropolymerizable monomer in the presence of a dispersed phase of polymeric electrolyte having anionic surface character (e.g., a polymeric latex having anionic surface character). While the conductive polymer material can be processed by convenient coating methods into electrically conductive films, it will be appreciated that it would be advantageous to prepare processable electrically conductive polymers by a method which is not dependent upon the manufacturing and equipment limitations associated, in general, with electrochemical methods.